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THE AMERICAN. MUSEUM 
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AN ANCIENT VILLAGE SITE OF THE SHINNECOCK INDIANS 


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ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS 


OF 


THE AMERICAN MUSEUM 
OF NATURAL HISTORY 


VoL. XXII, PART V 


AN ANCIENT VILLAGE SITE OF THE SHINNECOCK INDIANS 
| BY 


M. R. HARRINGTON 





NEW YORK 
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES 
1924 


AN ANCIENT VILLAGE SITE OF THE SHINNECOCK INDIANS 


By M. R. Harrincton 


227 





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INTRODUCTION : 

THE Sire anp I's SuRROUNDINGS 
The Site 

THe EXCAVATIONS . 
Method of leestive ior 
Pits : 
Shell-heap A . 
Shell-heap B . 
Shell-heap C . 
Shell-heap D . 
Shell-heap E . 
Wigwam Sites 
Burial 
Copper Bead . 
Shell-heap F . 
Other Deposits 
The Spring Knoll . 
Graves 
Other Pits 3 
Spring Knoll Village ayer 
Archaic Specimens 


CONTENTS. 


RECONSTRUCTION OF SHINNECOCK Canc 


Site Identified as Shinnecock 
Dwellings. 

Means of Taveibood 
Cookery . 
Manufactures 

Use of Wood . 
Stonework : 
Bone and Antler . 
Pottery . 

Weaving ; 

Art and Oe eanent 
Trade : 

Fate of the hans ecock 


CULTURAL AND LinauIstic PosITIon 


229 


PAGE. 
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272 
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281 


CBA IONE CRE eaten 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
Text FIGURES. 


Map of the Sebonae Site 

Section of Pit 62 Shell-heap A 

Piece of Aboriginal Textile 

Implements for making Pottery 

Piece of Whale’s Jawbone showing Marie of the Stone ie 


Part of Pottery Vessel showing Coiling and a Piece of a Clay Coil 


Pebble showing Drawing of an Animal’s Face 


PAGE. 
234 
236 
237 
239 
239 
240 
240 


Obverse and Reserve of a Clay Stone Pendant showing Tenens yonainen 


representing a Bird Head and an Eye, respectively 
Sketch of Skeleton in Pit 54 
Part of Tortoise Shell Bowl 
Copper or Brass Bead 
Pottery Vessel 
Section of Pit 59. — 
Section of Pit 1 
Objects of European Origin 
Model of Shinnecock Wigwam . 
Stone Implements 
Fish Hooks and Barbs 
Modern Shinnecock Implements 
Shinnecock Baskets 
Ancient Wooden Canoe Paddle 
Chipped Implements and Clay Stone Pendnae 
Objects of Bone and Antler : : 
Bone Awls : : . 
Fragment of Stes ‘ite Vessel showing Handle 
Stone Mortar 
Steatite Pipe 
Part of Engraved Stone Fontan : 
Worked Beaver Tooth and Restoration of Bone Anon Point 
Potsherd, Lenapé Type 
Potsherds showing Decoration . 
Pipe Fragments and Potsherd bearing Sketch of Bird ; 
Black and Red Paint Stones 
Earthen Pipe, Canoe Place 
Portrait of Wickam Cuffee 
Portrait of Charles S. Bunn 
Portrait of Mrs. A. E. Waters . 
Portrait of John H. Thompson 
Portrait of Mary Ann Cuffee 


230 


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INTRODUCTION 


The investigation described in this paper, carried on under the 
auspices of the American Museum of Natural History during the summer 
of 1902, was probably the first attempt to study in detail any of the 
aboriginal village sites on the eastern end of Long Island, New York, 
although considerable work of a more general nature had been done 
before by Tooker! and others. In fact, so far as the writer knows, it is 
the only study of the sort on record to date, the only other publication 
dealing with actual explorations in this district being a description of 
the excavation of a Montauk cemetery of the Colonial period? and not 
of a village site. 


Assisting the writer were Mr. Arthur C. Parker, now State 
Archeologist of New York, and Mr. Alanson Skinner, now Curator of 
Anthropology at the Milwaukee Public Museum. It is interesting to 
note that this was Mr. Skinner’s first expedition and Mr. Parker’s 
second. 


The expenses of the first part of the expedition were borne by Mrs. 
Esther Hermann; but after this fund had become exhausted, Mr. Will- 
iam Weiss of Southampton, New York, assisted us to carry on the work 
another month; and to both of these patrons the thanks of the Museum 
are due. 


A brief résumé of our results was published in the Southern Workman 
for June, 1903. The work received passing newspaper notice at the time, 
and in due course a detailed report was made tothe Museum. It was not, 
however, until more than nineteen years had elapsed since our party 
folded its tents and closed its notebooks for the last time on Shinnecock 
Hills that the opportunity arrived for the writer to revise his report for 
publication. 

The results of his efforts will be found in the following pages, in 
which the writer will describe the site, the method of excavation, and the 
phenomena encountered during the course of the digging. An endeavor 
will then be made to reconstruct, as nearly as can be done with the scant 
data which still remain, the material side of the life of the Indians who 
inhabited this village, and to give a glimpse of their arts and crafts, 
their dwellings, and the means by which they gained their livelihood. 








1Tooker, William Wallaze. ‘‘Some Indian Fishing Stations upon Long Island’”’ (The Algonquian 
Series, New York, 1901). 

*Saville, Foster H., ‘‘A Montauk Cemetery at Easthampton, Long Island’’ (Indian Notes and 
Monographs, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, Vol. Il, No. 3, New York, 1920). 


231 


202 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 


Fortunately, we are not obliged to depend solely upon the specimens 
found buried in the earth for our information, although these furnish the 
bulk of it; for we discovered a few articles of native style still in the 
hands of the mixed-blood descendants of the Shinnecock Indians who 
inhabited a nearby settlement at the time of our visit. From these and 
some of the older whites in the neighborhood was secured considerable 
information of interest. A knowledge of other tribes of similar culture 
was found helpful in the interpretation of some of our finds, as were the 
old records of the town of Southampton, and the accounts of early 
travelers who met the Long Island and neighboring Indians in their 
pristine state. These last will be employed by reference only, as Skinner 
has made full use of them in his accounts,' of the Indians about New York 
City, published by this Museum. Our justification for using the modern 
Shinnecock artifacts in connection with those exhumed from the ancient 
village, implying that these also are of Shinnecock origin, will appear 
later. 


1§kinner, Alanson, ‘‘The Lenapé Indians of Staten Island”’ (this series, vol. 3, New York, 1909); 
“The Indians of Manhattan ialend and Vicinity”’ (Guide Leaflet Series No. 41, ‘American Museum of 
Natural History, New York, 1915). 


THE SITE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS 


Far out, toward the extreme end of Long Island, some eighty miles 
eastward from New York City, lie the Shinnecock Hills, a rolling sandy 
tract, almost treeless, but covered with bay and thorn bushes and dotted 
with little swamps where taller underbrush and even small trees may be 
seen, rising from a tangle of wild grape vines and wild roses, the blossoms 
of the former, even more than the latter, filling the air with perfume in 
late spring and early summer. 

The Hills occupy the narrow neck of land between Peconic and 
Shinnecock bays, the former an arm of Long Island Sound, the latter 
separated from the Atlantic only by a narrow barrier beach of sand. To 
the east, the country becomes more level and fertile, and on the Peconic 
side was still heavily wooded at the time of our visit. On the Atlantic 
side lies the town of Southampton, even then a popular resort in summer. 
To the west of Shinnecock Hills the isthmus becomes even narrower, 
until at Canoe Place but a comparatively few yards of sand divided the 
waters of Peconic Bay from those of the bay to the south, and conse- 
quently, of the Atlantic. Here the Indians had a portage,! over which 
they could drag their canoes a short distance overland from the Atlantic 
into Long Island Sound by way of Peconic Bay, without being obliged to 
brave the rough waters in rounding Montauk Point, the extreme eastern 
tip of the Island, and thereby saving some seventy or eighty miles of 
distance out and back. The whites also were not slow in appreciating 
the strategic advantage of the spot with the result that the State has 
constructed a canal on the site of the old Indian portage for the benefit of 
local fishermen. 

This short cut must have played a considerable part in making the 
region attractive to the Indian, supplementing its natural advantages of 
goodsprings of water, proximity to the ocean and to nearly land-locked bays 
furnishing the best of fishing and numerous clams and oysters, a nearby 
forest which must have abounded in game, and convenient fertile tracts 
suitable for cultivation. In fact, numerous traces of ancient habitation 
may be seen on every hand, especially on the northern side, where the 
hills are lower, along the shores and coves of Peconic Bay. 

The Site. The largest of these sites, the scene of our investigations, 
lies along the west bank of Sebonac Creek, which, rising in a series of 
springs in a little swamp about three-quarters of a mile north of the 
Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, flows northward for some distance as a fresh 


1Tooker, op. cit., 41. 
233 


234 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 


water brook. Before long, however, it becomes a tidal creek which in 
turn broadens out into Bull Head Bay, an arm of Peconic Bay. Scat- 
tered along the entire distance from the springs to the bay might be seen 
patches of decaying oyster and clam shells of varying area and depth, 
sometimes but a few yards in diameter, sometimes quite extensive. For 
the most part, these showed on the surface in the form of small fragments 
of shell only visible to the practised eye among the thin grass and 
straggling bushes. 

To the casual observer such deposits of shells appear to have been 
laid down on the sea bottom at some time when the present dry land was 
submerged; in fact, the writer has often been asked if such could not be 
the case. Upon his reply that the shells were left by the Indians, the 
questioner almost invariably inquires, ‘‘ What was their object?” and is 
usually greatly astonished to learn how simple is the answer: that the 
aborigines, after gathering the oysters and clams, and bringing them to 
their village, merely ate them and threw the shells away, and that these 
shells, accumulating through the years, formed the deposits that have 
endured until this day. 

Ten of these ‘‘shell-heaps”’ were counted on this site, large enough 
to warrant the conclusion that each represented not one, but a group of 
ancient habitations, besides smaller ones which probably marked the site 
of solitary wigwams. They were lettered consecutively on our map 
as, A, B, C, ete., beginning at the springs and proceeding northward. 
This map (Fig. 1) shows only five of the shell deposits, however,—those 
wholly or partially explored—the others lie to the northward, outside ~ 
of the area represented. 















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THe EXCAVATIONS 


Method of Investigation. Our first procedure in examining one of 
these deposits was to dig in various parts of it small excavations called 
test holes, each some eighteen or twenty inches in diameter, penetrating 
through the shells and other materials composing the ‘“‘village layer”’ 
down to the original undisturbed soil of the site. By ‘‘village layer” 
is meant the accumulated refuse of the Indian village, not only the shells, 
but the soil blackened by the decay of organic matter, stones shattered 
and cracked by the heat of ancient campfires, charcoal, ashes, the bones 
of food animals split for marrow, fragments of broken earthen pots, 
chips of flint and other refuse from the making of stone implements, and 
occasional perfect objects of Indian make, lost by accident or hidden for 
safe-keeping. 

By these test holes then, we determined the depth and richness of 
a deposit, and could then decide what part or parts, if any, warranted 
more thorough excavation. Should such a place be found the next step 
was to locate the edge of the deposit and there start a trench running 
down through the village layer, three or four inches into the undisturbed 
sand below, and wide enough to allow six feet to each worker. A trench 
of this kind was carried forward by carefully digging down the front with 
a trowel, searching the soil for relics, then, with a shovel, throwing the 
loose earth thus accumulated back out of the way into the part already 
dug over, so as to expose a new front. Test holes two or three feet deep 
were sunk into the sand here and there and the digging-down process 
repeated until the opposite side of the deposit was reached and the indica- 
tions disappeared. Then another trench was run parallel and adjacent 
to the first on its richest side, and so on, until the investigator was satis- 
fied that he had covered the entire deposit, or at least as much as his 
purpose required. | 

Pits.. The object of digging the trenches not merely to the bottom 
of the village layer, but several inches below it, and of driving test holes, 
was to detect disturbances running down into the subsoil from the bottom 
of the deposit. Such disturbances may be very difficult to follow, show- 
ing merely slight stains and bits of charcoal running down into the 
ground; but they indicate that the subsoil at that point had at some 
distant date been dug out and filled in again. It is incumbent on the 
archeologist to find out why, if he can, and to this end he must dig them 
out to the very bottom. 

This frequently leads him to a skeleton, but still more frequently the 
disturbance turns out to be merely a pit, a bowl-shaped or cup-shaped 

235 


236 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 


hole, dug for one of several purposes, and later used as a repository for 
ashes and camp refuse that were thus disposed of neatly and easily. 
One of the purposes for which they were dug was for the storage of corn 
over the winter. Probably many of the larger pits were thus first em- 
ployed, but the majority seem to have been ovens or steaming holes, the 
Indian prototype of the fireless cooker, and direct progenitor of the 
modern clambake. As nearly as can be discovered, these holes were 
lined with stones and a fire built in them which was kept up until hole 
and stones were piping hot. Then the oysters, clams, meat, or whatever 
food had to be cooked, were put inside and carefully covered so as to 
retain the heat, and left until done. Some seem to have been used as 
cookers, without the addition of stones; others, to have been dug purely 
and simply for the disposal of odoriferous garbage. ‘The examples 
described on the following pages illustrate typical forms and sizes. 









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Shell-heap A. The first shell-heap examined, designated on our 
map (Fig. 1) by the letter A, was situated near the little swamp whose 
springs constitute the source of Sebonac Creek. Numerous test holes 
dug in different parts revealed the fact that the village layer was shallow, 
averaging about a foot in depth, and that its groundplan was oval, with 
a length of 110 feet and a width of about 30 feet. Our tests, although 
failing to yield prospects good enough to warrant trenching, disclosed 
one rather unusual pit, about 4 feet wide and 3 feet deep, filled with 
alternate layers of shells and sand as shown in the section (Fig. 2) and 
containing disjointed dog bones at the very bottom. Scattered through 
the other layers were several arrow points and unfinished implements of 
quartz, two broken bone awls, a piece of deer antler, and numerous 
animal bones, for the most part split for the marrow, as usual. 


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1924.] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 237 


Shell-heap B. Shell-heap B was much larger, some 200 feet long by 
100 feet wide, although no deeper than Shell-heap A. It proved to be so 
much richer that we dug no less than twelve trenches, uncovering twenty- 
eight pits. Among the most interesting of these was Pit 10, which was 
found to be 53 inches long, 47 inches wide, and 47 inches deep, and con- 
tained, besides the usual shells, deer and fish bones, broken pottery, and 
bone awls, two burned layers, one directly upon the bottom, one six 
inches above, yielding charred hickory nuts, acorns, bits of rushes and 
wood, and most interesting of all, charred cord and bits of aboriginal 
fabric, made of some coarse vegetal fiber (Fig. 3). Another notable pit 
was No. 28 which was 6 feet in diameter and 4% feet deep, with a layer of 
burned shells and ashes in the center. 
This pit yielded a number of bone awls and 
worked pieces of antler, an antler arrow 
point, many fragments of pottery and 
an unusual number of bones of various 
animals, birds, and fish, together with a 
small deposit of still recognizable fish scales 
in the very bottom. Pit 40 contained, 
among other objects, thirteen scrapers of Fig. 3 (20-7472). Piece of 
quartz and Pit47,alargemortar stone with Aboriginal Textile. 
two grinding cavities, one on each side. 


An unexpected find appeared in Pit 43, which, although but 3 feet 
wide and 22 inches deep, contained, at 16 inches, the dismembered 
skeleton of a person some twenty years of age, among whose bones, 
some of them slightly charred, lay a few bones of an infant. Many pot- 
sherds appeared in this pit, some of them lying directly upon the skull. 
Beneath the bones were found more broken pottery and a number of the 
bony plates or scales of a large sturgeon. The charring of toes, ankles, 
pelvis, and ribs suggest that the poor unfortunate may have met death 
at the stake. 

Most instructive of all, however, was Pit 48 which, in spite of its 
small size (3 feet in diameter and 28 inches deep), yielded an excellent 
series of specimens illustrating the making of pottery. A lump of un- 
worked clay and some tempered clay lay in the bottom of the pit, while 
immediately above, fragments of the major portion of a large jar were 
found. Among the refuse of the pit, which was largely filled with shells 
of the soft clam, were found two stone pottery smoothers with the clay 
still adhering (Fig. 4a), a bone awl that could have been used to draw 
the incised designs on a vessel while still soft, a stone muller, probably 


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238 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 


intended to crush the clay or the tempering materials, probably both, 
and preserved by accidental burning a small vessel in the course of 
manufacture showing the coiling process distinctly (Fig. 6). 

Among the many arrow-heads, potsherds, and other specimens 
turned out in the general digging here, one object holds a peculiar interest. 
It is the perforated circular ornament of claystone shown in Fig. 8, en- 
graved on one side with a figure which suggests the head of a bird (a), 
on the other, with a design which seems to represent an eye, of which 
the central perforation forms the pupil (6). 

Shell-heap C. Situated some 100 feet northeast of Shell-heap B lies 
Shell-heap C, very similar in form to A, but a little larger and a little 
deeper, averaging 14 inches, as two trenches and a number of test holes 
showed. A few pits were found here, one of which, a small one, contained 
a flat pebble, bearing scratched upon it a rude sketch of the face of some 
animal resembling a lynx (Fig. 7). Much of the ordinary material was 
found in the general digging, scattered through the whole deposit. 

Shell-heap D. On a rise of ground some distance north of the 
preceding was situated Shell-heap D, which, like it, was of rather small 
dimensions. It was shallower, measuring only 8 inches, and contained 
but two pits worthy of the name, one of the common form and contents, 
the other, Pit 64, more cup-shaped than bowl-shaped, with sides 
nearly perpendicular. This contained, besides the common bones and 
sherds, a lynx jaw, a raccoon jaw, and a piece of antler showing cutting. 

Shell-heap E. Just east of D, lay Shell-heap E, large and irregular 
in outline and variable as to depth. This shell-heap was chiefly remark- 
able because it contained two wigwam sites distinguishable as such, the 
first the writer had seen in all his three years’ archeological digging about 
New York. 

Wigwam Sites. The first wigwam site was an oval of stained earth 
about 15 feet wide by 20 feet long, and in the center, where the fireplace 
seems to have been, reaching a depth of 3 feet. The average depth of 
the floor, however, was some 27 inches. Here were unearthed two mas- 
sive pieces of a whale’s lower jaw bone, still showing at the ends the marks 
of the stone ax with which it had been cut into lengths (Fig. 5), for what 
purpose was not evident. Scattered about through the deposit were 
many pieces of a small pottery vessel, bone awls, and pieces of deer 
antler showing cutting, besides the ordinary animal bones, flint chips, and 
the like. Shells and charcoal, while present, were by no means abundant. 

Of considerably smaller size was the second wigwam site, which lay 
about ten feet southeast from the first, for it measured only 10 feet by 





Fig. 4 ab (20-7762, 7631). Implements for making Pottery. 





Fig. 5 (20-7918). Piece of Whale’s Jawbone showing Marks of the Stone Ax. 


239 








Fig. 8. 


Fig. 6 a’, a (20-7846, 7774). Part of Pottery Vessel showing Coiling and 
a Piece of a Clay Coil. 

Fig. 7 (20-7627). Pebble showing Drawing of an Animal’s Face. 

Fig. 8 ab (20-7660). Obverse and Reverse of a Clay Stone Pendant show- 
ing Designs possibly representing a Bird Head and an Eye, respectively. 


1924. ] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 241 


15 feet. In the center, where the fireplace had been, was a distinct spot 
of burned earth, and a deposit of ashes, a little over 2 feet below the 
present surface. This wigwam site, like the first, was thoroughly ex- 
cavated, but yielded only the commonest of pottery fragments and split 
animal bones. 

Burial. But a few feet east of the first wigwam site, in Pit 54, a 
typical burial came to light, the first and only one entirely in anatomical 
order found on the site. It was the skeleton of an aged person lying 
flexed on its right side with the head to the southwest, face turned 
toward the east, and hands near the face (Fig. 9). The only unusual 
feature was the sunken position of the hips, fully two feet deep, while the 
head was 14 inches and the feet but 12 inches from the surface. Near the 
pelvis were two worked stones and a large part of a bowl made from the 
shell of a box tortoise (Fig. 10). Above and a little south of the knees 
was a small bed of ashes. Throughout the grave were 
seattered disintegrating oyster shells, while the skeleton 
itself was badly decayed. 

Copper Bead. This grave had cut into a pit (No. 
55) which contained merely the ordinary animal bones 
and bits of broken pottery, in which respect it resembled 
several other pits that were opened in the vicinity. 
A rare article, however, appeared in the northern part 
of this shell-heap in the general digging, a cylindrical F 

Fig. 11 (20- 
copper bead (Fig. 11), apparently made of the native 8026). Copper 
metal; but without analysis this cannot be stated as a_ or Brass Bead. 
positive fact. 

Shell-heap F. North of Shell-heap E was a small fresh-water pond 
which became nearly dry in summer. North of the pond Shell-heap F 
extended down to the swampy ground surrounding the pond and the 
adjacent salt meadows. The swamp itself was full of shells in a number 
of places. This was the largest deposit of all, for it extended almost 
continuously from the little pond in a northerly direction around the 
western side of what we called the Spring Knoll a distance of five or six 
hundred feet, and was in places more than a hundred feet wide. The 
little work we were able to accomplish here in the brief time that re- 
mained to us was productive of excellent results, however, for the 
second pit (No. 59) yielded a nearly perfect pottery vessel of the pointed- 
bottom variety (Fig. 12), a long bone awl, and a beaver tooth, besides 
the usual material. This pit was oval in groundplan, measuring 4% feet 
by 6 feet, with a depth of 28 inches. The construction, as may be seen 





242 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXTI, 


in the section (Fig. 13), was rather out of the ordinary, in that the pit 
had been filled with raw unstained material such as forms the subsoil in 
the vicinity, thus producing a yellow layer above the shells and blackened 
earth of the pit. Such pits illustrate the wisdom of digging occasional 

test holes into the apparently undisturbed subsoil. 

This was in the first trench; further trenching brought to light 
many small pit-like depressions, as well as ash-covered beds of fire- 
broken stones, all in or below a village layer which averaged about 10 
inches deep. This yielded some very good bone awls, many potsherds 
and the ordinary material. At one place two points of deer antler and a 
bone awl were found in contact, lying on the original subsoil upon which 
the shell-heap rests. 

Other Deposits. The shell-heaps to the northward toward Peconic 
Bay, and there were quite a number, were not touched for lack of time. 

The Spring Knoll. Between Shell-heap F and Sebonae Creek, at 
this point expanding into a good-sized salt water cove, is situated the 
Spring Knoll, one of the most interesting parts of the whole village site. 
Toward the water, it terminates in a steep cutbank about 10 feet high, 
extending down to the edge of the creek, where a clear cold spring bubbles 
forth, while on the land side, beyond the shell-heap, the knoll blends with 
the brambly, wind-swept Shinnecock Hills. On this knoll, not far from 
the spring, the explorer’s camp was pitched. 

Graves. Just south of the crest of the knoll, test holes in one spot 
revealed dark stains penetrating the yellow sand, with here and there a 
scattered shell—a likely looking prospect for a grave. We followed these 
stains, of course, with the result that we soon traced the outline of a pit 
(No. 11) some five feet in diameter, and shortly afterward, at a depth of 
28 inches, encountered the decayed bones of four infants matted together 
inacompact mass. The pit ran down to a depth of 38 inches and yielded, 
besides these remains and a few scattered bones of an adult, several 
fragments of pipes, both earthen and steatite, one of the latter engraved, 
and the usual sherds, including some fragments of steatite vessels, 
together with split deer bones and the like. 

Pit No. 14, another grave, was found about 10 feet southwest of 
Pit. No. 11. It contained the remains of a child aged about twelve, at a 
depth of 29 inches to the top of the skull. The skeleton headed east, and 
lay partly on the stomach with knees northward and feet doubled back 
to the pelvis. The skull had been displaced and was found facing west 
near the knees. It was badly cracked and the lower jaw and some of the 
cervical vertebree were apparently missing, but were afterwards located 





Fig. 10 (20-7937). Part of Tortoise Shell Bowl. 


243 










= ~ 


a I/ 5 ue 


VILLAGE REFUSE 2 c 
- pata - = . 


CoO 
Re Ay 


<= SHELLS CE 
= 2S 



















poe a’ 
STAINED EARTH 2 
SCATTERED SHECE, 
valk! 












NS : =e | 4] | Za “<S 
, SD A EN 
NEANESIRG SUN 


Fig. 13. Section of Pit 59. 


244 





1924.] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 245 


near the pelvis. All the other bones were placed naturally. The pit 
ran down to the depth of 25 inches and contained broken pottery, fish 
bones, and the like, also a quartz arrow-head. 

Other Pits. Six feet south of Pit No. 14 was Pit No. 35, of unusually 
large size, being 7 feet wide and 44 feet deep, a pit which yielded among 
other material charred corn and cobs. Four feet south was still another 
pit (No. 36) about the same size as the last. It was nearer the swamp 
and reached water. In the bottom, embedded in the saturated sand and 
ashes lay many potsherds and a broken skull and femur. Both articulat- 
ing surfaces of the femur and the face of the skull were missing. There 
were a number of other pits on the knoll, but these were not specially 
interesting. 

Spring Knoll Village Layer. North of the summit of the knoll and 
facing Sebonac Creek is situated a small hollow in which were found 
many traces of occupation, but few shells. Here a number of trenches 
brought to ight many specimens, among them a perforated clay-stone 
ornament and a potsherd bearing the engraved figure of a bird, perhaps 
the mythic “thunderbird” (Fig. 32e). Several pits were exposed here, 
one of which was Pit No. 1, interesting because it contained near the 
bottom a large number of land snail shells (Helix albolabris and alternata) 
showing the probable use of such snails as food. A section of this pit is 

‘shown in Fig. 14. 

Archaic Specomens. The soil of the hollow is different from that of - 
the other deposits on this site, as the black village layer reaches the depth 
of twenty inches in places, with but few and scattered shells. Most of 
the artifacts were found near the bottom, Just above the yellow sand 
which underlies the whole deposit, but in some cases stemmed arrow 
points and crude crumbling pottery of a somewhat more archaic char- 
acter than most of the specimens found here were exhumed from the 
yellow sand itself. It should be noted, in this connection, that the 
triangular type of arrow point was the most abundant on this village site; 
not, however, the narrow triangles associated with Iroquois culture, but 
the broad form affected by the seaboard Algonkian tribes. 


RECONSTRUCTION OF SHINNECOCK CULTURE 


Such were the conditions found and such the nature of our excava- 
tions. We must now attempt to learn from the specimens exhumed from 
this ancient village something of the life of its vanished inhabitants, of 
their means of livelihood, their industries and manufactures, and their 
relations with other peoples. Only in so far as we may be able to accom- 
plish this will the results of our investigations be of real value. 
Fortunately, as before mentioned, we have specimens and information 
gathered from the descendants of this people, old local records, the writ- 
ings of early travelers, and the surviving practices of similar tribes to 
help us. 

Site identified as Shinnecock.’ With the exception of the few objects 
characterized above as archaic, found on and near the top of the sandy 
subsoil underlying the village layer on the Spring Knoll, all the material 
found was quite uniform and apparently the work of one people. Some 
articles made by the whites of the Colonial period (Fig. 15) were found 
near the surface, indicating that whatever the age of its first settlement 
the village had been occupied up to the coming of the whites. Now the 
white settlers found the Shinnecock in full possession of the district;! 
so if the last Indians of the village were Shinnecock, and the deposits for 
the most part contain the handiwork of only one people, we have good 
reason for assuming that the village was Shinnecock from first to last. 
As for the archaic articles, somewhat different in character, found in one 
spot on the Spring Knoll, these appear to be relics of an earlier camp 
occupied by a people who may or may not have been the ancestors of the 
Shinnecock. 

Dwellings. What sort of houses stood on the knolls beside Sebonac 
Creek three hundred years ago? Our excavations told us little, except 
that they were of oval groundplan, some as small as ten by fifteen feet, 
some as large as fifteen by twenty feet; that their floors, sometimes.at 
least, were sunk two or three feet below the surrounding surface of the 
ground; and finally, that the fireplace was in the middle of the floor. 

There seemed to be little hope of finding further data. So when we 
discovered several living people who had seen Shinnecock wigwams in 
actual use our surprise and pleasure were great. Some of the informants 
were aged descendants of the Shinnecock; others were elderly whites 
who had spent their days in the neighborhood; but all agreed on a 
description which may be stated as follows:— 





1Thompson, Benjamin Franklin, History of Long Island from its Discovery and Settlement to the 
Present Time (Third edition, revised and greatly enlarged, New York, 1918), vol. 1, 127. 


246 






‘ one Meare Shen Sno 3 

Rene gt ee ene yon & a etre 
fs BEVIN a Se ia Ye rir a Oi es 
aye ee Sos tae 7 fae - ee, 
_—_ 






















SoLtod SHELLS 


TT LW 


Fig. 14. Section of Pit 1. 





ch 
Fig. 15 abe (20-7319, 7292, 7667). Objects of European Origin. 


8S 


“UIBMSIAA YOOOUUTYY JO [Epojy 


*(FE-IN) OT SMT 





. 


1924] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 249 


Poles were bent into intersecting arches until a dome-shaped frame 
was made from ten to twenty feet in diameter. After all the poles had 
been tied firmly together, and horizontal strips put in place, the whole 
was thatched with a species of grass, called ‘‘blue vent,” put on in over- 
lapping rows, and sewed fast to the strips. When the top was reached, a 
hole was left open for the escape of smoke, and the edges of the aperture 
plastered with clay to prevent the thatch from catching fire. The ground- 
plan was circular or oval, sometimes divided into rooms by partitions of 
wattle-work and thatch. The door frame was an arched pole, the door of 
wood, or sometimes merely a curtain of skin or mats. An elevated 
bench or couch of poles generally encircled the interior, beneath which 
the goods were stored. In at least one case, at a place where poles were 
difficult to procure, the floor was dug out in the middle so as to leave a 
shelf around the wall which answered the purpose of bed, seat, and table. 
The fireplace was in the center. 

To preserve this information in tangible form, Mr. W. C. Orchard 
visited the Shinnecock settlement a few months after our party had left, 
and under the instruction of Wickam Cuffee (Fig. 35), one of the oldest 
and purest-blooded of the survivors, prepared a model showing the exact 
method of construction, which may be seen in Fig. 16. We afterward 
found a photograph of a full-sized Shinnecock wigwam in the records of 
the town of Southampton. 

Outdoor storehouses were still made in the Shinnecock settlement, 
at the time of our visit, by digging holes four or five feet deep and roofing 
them with poles and thatch. One of these may be seen behind the Indian 
in the photograph reproduced in Fig. 38. That this is an ancient method 
may be established from Colonial records,! which mention the ‘Indian 
barns” as constituting a danger to the Colonist’s cattle, on account of 
the excavations into which they might fall. | 

It is, of course, quite possible that the “holes” that gave the good 
people of Southampton such trouble in 1641 were merely abandoned 
storage pits that had never been roofed. 

Means of Livelihood. A glance at the thousands of rotting shells 
which compose the bulk of the deposits gives an immediate clue to the 
outstanding fact of ancient Shinnecock economics: that the sea furnished 
the greater part of their living. We must not rest content with the idea 
that oysters, hard clams, soft clams, and scallops constituted the whole 
of the ocean’s contribution, for the refuse layers and pits yielded crum- 





iPelletreau, William S., “‘ The First Book of Records of the Town of Southampton with Other Ancient 
eae of Historic Value” (Transcribed with Notes and Introduction, Sag Harbor, New York, 1874), 





Fig. 17 a-d (20-7634, 8000, 7736, 7811). Stone Implements. 


250 





1924.] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 251 


bling bony plates once forming the armor of huge sturgeons, while the 
teeth of sharks, the bones, and sometimes the scales of other fish, most 
of them beyond precise identification, together with the claws of crabs, 
show that the Shinnecock made good use of all the edible creatures the 
local waters afforded. 

As to the method of taking fish, the shell-heaps yielded a few sugges- 
tions, among which was the presence of numerous flat pebbles, notched 
at the edges (Fig. 17a) as if to keep an encircling cord from slipping off. 
Similar stones may be seen in use as net-sinkers among some tribes 
today. Such a use for the objects in 
question is made more probable by his- 
torical data referring to the use of nets 
by nearby peoples.! A part of an antler 
fish hook (Fig. 18a) which, when perfect, 
probably resembled the bone hook found 
by Tooker (Fig. 18b), and a slender 
pointed bone object, so shaped as to 
suggest its use as a barb for a fish- 
spear (Fig. 18¢c), hint at other possible 
methods, as does the survival, among 
the neighboring mixed-bloods of today, 
of fish traps made of basketry of a style 
once used by most of the tribes of what 
are now the central Atlantic States. 

We cannot go so far as to state - 
that these Indians actually hunted the 
whale, although fragments of a barbed : ‘ 
antler harpoon head hint at such a pxLoaker Colleoscnls Wah Heese 

eae and Barbs. a, Part of antler fish 
possibility. Worked bones of one of hook: 6, Bone fish hook; c, Bone 
these great creatures found in one of barb. 
the wigwam sites show that they used 
the whale, whether they harpooned him on the high seas or found 
him dead on the beach. 

Colonial records lead one to believe that they did both, for we find in 
a deed of April 29, 1648? that the Shinnecock, in selling a certain tract re- 
tained their hunting and fishing rights, and were to have the ‘‘ffynnes 
and tayles of all such Whales as shall be cast up” on the adjoining 
































a 


Fig. 18 a and c (20-7471, 7518), 








1Van der Donck, Adriaen, ‘‘A Description of the New Netherlands” (Translated from the original 
Dutch by Hon. Jeremiah Johnson, Collections, New York Historical Society, 2d series, vol. 1, New 
York, 1841), 209. 

2Thompson. op. cit., vol. 2, 87. 


252 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 


beaches; while an ordinance of October 7, 1672! ‘ordered that no 
Indian employed in the whaling business shall have more than one trucker 
coat for each whale that his company shall kill, or half the blubber, 
without the whalebone.” Certainly, if Shinnecock “engaged in the 
whaling business” and their “companies killed whales” only thirty-two 
years after the coming of the whites, the presumption is strong that they 
did it before the Colonists arrived, about 1640. 

The records of the 1670’s are full of contracts in which various 
Indians agreed to go to sea for certain colonists in pursuit of whales 
“and other great fish,” promised to ‘‘use and improve our best skill and 
strength and utmost endeavor for killing” them, and avowed their 
intention of taking the best of care of boats and tackle, all for a certain 
stated payment; with a penalty of so much a day to pay for absence 
without good excuse. 

Certain it is also that in later historic times many Shinnecock 
shipped as whalers out of Sag Harbor and their seagoing instinct is 
demonstrated by the tragic fate of twenty-eight of the men, including a 
large proportion of the full-bloods, who perished while trying to save the 
stranded ship Circassian as late as December 31, 1876. 

Although so large a proportion of their food supply came from the 
sea, quantities of deer bones split for the marrow show that the Shinne- 
cock by no means despised the venison that formed the staple food of so 
many tribes, while other bones taken from the shell-heaps and pits show 
that the flesh of the raccoon, muskrat, and even perhaps the lynx, was 
not neglected, and that due advantage was taken of the spring and fall 
migrations of wild fowl. Bits of bony carapaces extracted from among 
the shells of the middens tell of the use of various kinds of turtles as 
food, and deposits of the shells of land snails would seem to indicate that 
the primitive Long Islanders were not unfamiliar with that popular 
French dainty. 

The finding of numerous arrow points of stone and of deer antler 
amid the village refuse and of bones showing wounds, probably made by 
such points, indicates that shooting with the bow and arrow must have 
been one of the methods for taking game. All knowledge of other 
appliances, whether weapons, traps, or snares is now lost. By analogy 
with styles used by most Eastern tribes, we may surmise that the Shinne- 
cock bow was probably straight, five feet or even more in length, with a 
rectangular section; and that the arrows were also long, at least thirty 
inches, and were provided with three feathers. The modern Shinnecock 





lIdem., 154. 


1924.] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 253 


mixed-bloods told the writer that their bow was of hickory, ‘‘as long as the 
man who used it.” 

The products of agriculture are highly perishable, so it is not sur- 
prising that so few cobs and grains of corn or maize appeared in our 
deposits. The astonishing thing is that some did happen to fall in the 
fire to be preserved by charring for our instruction hundreds of years 
later. It is certain, from our knowledge of other eastern tribes, that the 
raising of corn, beans, and squashes must have been of considerable 
importance to Shinnecoek diet; certainly more than the bare handful of 
charred cobs and grains would lead us to expect. 

Most, if not all, Indian tribes took full advantage of such natural 
products as their environment afforded in the way of roots, nuts, and 
berries. The finding of charred hickory nuts leads us to surmise that the 
Shinnecock were no exception to this general rule. A rather pathetic 
bit of corroborative evidence appears in the Southampton records! where 
we find that :-— 

At a general court held March 6, 1654, it was ordered that noe Indian shall 
digg for ground nuts on the plain nor in any other ground, upon penalty of sitting in 
ye stocks for ye first fault, and for the second to be whipped. 

Cookery. To describe the cookery of a people after several hundred 
years have elapsed is no easy task, and cannot, of course, be done in 
detail. Yet, we are not altogether without clues, for our shell-heaps 
yielded many potsherds, and a few fragments of steatite vessels, some 
still so coated with deposits of soot or similar material that we can safely 
say that liquid foods were boiled in earthen kettles with pointed bot- 
toms, or in oval or rectangular kettles of soapstone provided with handles 
at the ends, both set directly over the fire. But how could a vessel with 
pointed bottom be made to stand while the contents was cooking? Such 
a question naturally suggests itself, but is answered for us by John White 
of the Roanoke Colony of Virginia, 1585-1588, who made a drawing of a 
kettle of this type in use, supported by the sticks of firewood, and cap- 
tioned it ‘The seething of their meate in Potts of earth.” Other tribes 
who have used pointed-bottom ‘“‘potts”’ in recent years frequently sup- 
port them with three or four stones, between which the point is set.’ 

Now, the question arises as to just what sorts of food were cooked in 
these vessels. The boiling of meat in the form of soups or stews is sug- 
gested by the numerous bones of deer and other animals, which, although 








Idem, 152. 

2Holmes, W. Hz, ‘Aboriginal Pottery of the Seitas United States”? (Twentieth Annual Report, 
Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, 1903), pl. 

3Skinner, Alanson, ‘‘ Notes on the Bribri of Costa Tica” (Indian rik ir one Monographs, Museum 
of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, vol. 6, no. 3, New York, 1920), 4 


254 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 


split for the marrow fat, considered by most surviving Indians as a great 
dainty, show no trace of burning or contact with fire at the ends, and so 
were probably boiled. That some meat at least was roasted or broiled 
is suggested by the fact that some bones do show such burning. The very 
fact that the burning is mainly confined to the ends indicates that the 
middle portions were covered with meat at the time of exposure to fire. 
Tradition among the surviving mixed-blood Shinnecock tells us also that 
the old people made hominy and ‘‘suppawn”’ or mush from corn, both of 
which required boiling. Also, that they boiled corn with ashes to re- 
move the hull, washed it free of lye, pounded it in a wooden mortar with 
a long stone pestle, mixed the resulting meal with berries or beans, accord- 
ing to the season, and finally boiled it in the form of dumplings. Such 
boiling, in ancient times, meant, of course, the use of the clay or stone pot. 

An inspection of the thousands of oyster and clam shells lying about 
the village site revealed the fact that few, if any, showed any traces of 
forcible opening, yet seldom were the two valves found together. Com- 
paratively few of them showed traces of fire, so we cannot conclude that 
they were usually opened by laying them on glowing coals. From these 
facts, it appears that most of them must have been steamed open, which 
could best be done in the oven pits of which we found so many examples. 
From the phenomena we observed in our digging, plus our knowledge of 
the use of such primitive fireless cookers by other tribes, the method of 
procedure must have been somewhat as follows: A bowl-shaped hole 
was dug four or five feet in diameter and two or three feet deep, in which 
a layer of stones was placed. On these, a good fire was kindled which 
was kept burning until the stones and the hole itself were piping hot. 
Then a layer of seaweed was laid in, upon which the shellfish were placed, 
together with meat or fish, or whatever else the Indians wished to cook. 
These were covered with more seaweed and earth drawn over the hole to 
keep in the steam. When the pit was opened some hours later, the shells 
were all open and the contents ready to eat. Some such arrangement as 
this was probably the progenitor of the New England clambake, bor- 
rowed from the Indians by the colonists. 


We found no utensils especially intended for serving food unless the 
bowls made from the shells of the land tortoise, of which we unearthed a 
number of fragments, were so employed. The largest piece (Fig. 10) 
shows that the rim of the carapace had all been cut away and the rib-like 
bony structures inside scraped out to fit it for use as a bowl. In common 
with the Mohegan, the Lenapé, and other Eastern Algonkian tribes, the 
Shinnecock must have used bowls and spoons of wood; in fact we found 


GG 
‘ _ ‘ = joa “SI; ; 
‘syuoUIoduIyT YoooouurYY WEpoW “(FEFES ‘TOPE VE8FE ‘A68FE-0G) P—Y GT “SL 
ad ) d V 








C D 
Fig. 20 a-d (50-3485, 3483, 3487, 3484). Shinnecock Baskets. 


256 


1924.] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 257 


a few of the latter, resembling the butter ladles of the whites, among the 
surviving Shinnecock mixed-bloods (Fig. 19¢) and early accounts! tell of 
bowls and water vessels made of gourds, some as big as a Dutch bushel, 
used by neighboring tribes. 

Manufactures. An inspection of our collection shows that the ancient 
Shinnecock employed, as materials for their manufactures, flinty stones, 
tough stones, soft stones, deer antler, the bones of various animals, shells, 
clay for pottery making, vegetal fiber for making textiles and cordage, a 
little copper, and, of course, wood, although we found no actual wooden 
articles. Arrow points, however, imply arrows of wood. Arrows re- 
quired bows of wood and the presence of these suggest that other wooden 
articles must have been used. Such reasoning is not needed, however, for 
our inquiries concerning woodwork among the modern Shinnecock mixed- 
bloods brought a number of facts to light, which are doubtless, in part at 
at least, applicable to the ancient people. 

Use of Wood. Wooden mortars of two sizes were in general use: one 
large, about two feet high, used, with a wooden or a long stone pestle, 
for preparing corn; the other, small, less than a foot high, in which a 
stone pestle was employed to crush herbs. I failed to obtain any speci- 
mens of the first type, but succeeded in buying for the Museum the old 
herb mortar with its original stone pestle (Fig. 19ab), both handed down 
for generations in the family of John Thompson. Such mortars were 
made of sections of the trunk of the pepperidge tree, also called tupelo or 
sour-gum, the wood of which is noted for its toughness and freedom from 
splitting. The hollows in the mortars were made by laying on live coals 
and scraping out the charred portion, renewing the coals until the re- 
quired depth was reached. 

Baskets were made of white oak or maple splints in two principal 
forms, the one tall and cylindrical (Fig. 20a), the other flat and either 
circular (Fig. 20b) or rectangular in outline, with low sides. The winnow- 
ing basket for preparing corn was of the low-sided type. Fancy baskets 
(Fig. 20d), into whose composition sweetgrass sometimes entered, were 
formerly made, but this art has become extinct, the only basket now 
woven being a cylindrical type with a handle (Fig. 20c) identical with a 
style commonly made by the whites. The splints were sometimes dyed 
yellow, it is said, by a decoction of the inner bark of a species of oak. A 
pack basket, carried on the back by means of a band across the fore- 
head was still in common use sixty or seventy years ago for transporting 
burdens of all kinds. Eel traps of cylindrical form, with a funnel point- 





1Van der Donck, op. cit., 188. 


258 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 


ing inward at one end through which the fish could enter but not escape, 
were also made from the white oak splints, a widely distributed type. 

Serviceable brushes for cleaning pots were made by splitting the end 
of a white oak stick into small splints as seen in Fig. 19d and large brooms 
were sometimes made in the same style. Broad flat wooden ladles 
(Fig. 19¢) were common in old times, many of them 
resembling the butter ladles of the whites. 

Canoes, it is said, were made of great whitewood 
or oak logs, hollowed out with the aid of fire, like the 
wooden mortars. As for paddles, a certain Charles 
Conklin, while fishing for eels in the creek at Canoe 
Place, in February, 1880, found the larger part of an 
ancient oak paddle embedded in the mud. This imple- 
ment (Fig. 21) measures 34% inches long, with a blade 
which must have originally been at least 8 inches wide. 
It found its way to the collection of William Wallace 
Tooker at Sag Harbor, and finally to the Brooklyn 
Museum.! 

Stonework. The chipped implements of stone 
found on the site, probably variously used as arrow- 
heads, spear points, knife blades, and drills, were 
usually made of white quartz, which exists in abun- 
dance in the form of pebbles on the nearby beaches, 
together with less frequent pebbles of jasper and chert 

Fig.21. Ancient of different colors which were sometimes employed. 
Wooden Canoe Argillite was the only exotic material used for chipped 
a Tooker implements and this was probably brought in from 

what is now New Jersey by intertribal trade, already 
fashioned into implements. The triangular form of 
arrow point, usually of quartz, as before stated, (Fig. 22a, c), was 
the predominating type; the stemmed forms were generally, but not 
always, of other materials (Fig. 22d, e, f). The use of arrow points in 
hunting has been discussed; that they were also employed in war cannot 
be doubted. As may be seen from the typical specimens illustrated (Fig. 
22) the arrow points of the Shinnecock are rather irregular in form and 
crude in finish. 

Experiment has shown that the average stone knife was most 

efficient, not for whittling, but in cutting bone or wood when used as a 





















































1Thanks are due to Mr. Foster H. Saville for photographs and information concerning this paddle 
an oe objects in the Tooker Collection. The paddle and the fish hook have been published before. 
ee Tooker, op. cit. 








ae t 


a 
| s 
i) _— 
g 


Fig. 22 ai (20-7960, 7990, 7683a, 7857a, 7300, 7837, 7859, 7605, 7465). 
Chipped Implements and Clay Stone Pendant. 


259 











b 


Fig. 23 a-e (20-7580, 7580, 7927, 7438, 7544). 


260 





Objects of Bone and Antler. 


I i ne 


1924.] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 261 


saw, a process illustrated by many specimens of bone and antler (Fig. 
23d) found on this site which have been sawed around with a stone knife 
and then broken off. Another use of the stone knife was for grooving 
bones lengthwise until they were divided into long strips suitable for the 
manufacture of needles or awls. This process is also illustrated by several 
specimens, and experiment has shown its practicability. Undoubtedly, 
stone knives were also employed in skinning animals and in cutting meat. 

Few drills were found in our excavations, although objects of stone 
and bone and fragments of pottery showing drilling were not uncommon. 
Probably the tip of an arrow-head answered all ordinary purposes, espe- 
cially as, in almost every case, the drilling was done from both sides of the 
object to be perforated, making a long drill unnecessary. 

Chipped scrapers of different kinds were nearly as numerous as 
arrow points, the sharply bevelled type (Fig. 22h, i) predominating; quartz 
was the favorite material, or at least the most used, although a few were 
made of chert and jasper, and one of argillite. Several had been made of 
broken points re-chipped to give the necessary bevelled edge. Besides 
their use, noted among other peoples, for cleaning the flesh side of skins 
from any bits of fat or meat remaining after the preliminary scraping 
with larger implements, these scrapers were probably employed for 
scraping down arrow-shafts in much the same manner as the modern car- 
penter uses a bit of glass, and for shaping and sharpening bone awls, 
which sometimes show distinct traces of this process in the form of slight 
longitudinal grooves which may be reproduced by experiment. 

Large flakes, three or four inches in diameter, usually showing on 
one side the outer surface of the boulder from which they had been struck, 
were sometimes chipped so as to produce a disk-shaped implement with a 
rather blunt edge about the periphery, such as is used by several tribes 
today in softening skins. 

The preliminary flaking in the making of chipped implements seems 
to have been with hammerstones of which we found two types here: one, 
the natural pebble bruised about the edge by use (Fig. 17c); the other a 
more or less circular form with a pit in the middle of each flat side for the 
reception of the thumb and finger (Fig. 17d), the former variety being the 
most abundant. Such hammerstones were applied directly to the 
material in removing large flakes, but punch-like cylinders of antler 
(Fig. 23c) were probably sometimes interposed between the hammerstone 
and the edge of the blade to be flaked, and the points were finished by 
removing fine scales from their edges by pressure with a piece of bone or 
antler. The large number of unfinished implements, pieces rejected for 
defects, and flakes, testify to the extent of the industry. 


262 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 


The crudest chipped implements found were the so-called choppers, 
merely beach pebbles of quartz brought to a rough edge at one end by the 
removal of a few flakes which fitted them for use as a sort of ax for which 
no handle was necessary. Sometimes such choppers show the wear of 
considerable service, but it seems probable that most of them were shaped 
with a few strokes to serve the need of a moment and were then dis- 
carded. 


Hammerstones were doubtless used for many purposes, but their 
effects may be best seen today on the unfinished celts that were being 
slowly shaped by tedious battering and pecking (Fig. 17b). Broken 
finished specimens showing careful polishing were unearthed, but no 
complete examples appeared of this grooveless type of ax, which we know, 
from complete examples found elsewhere, was mortised into a club-like 
wooden handle. No examples of the grooved ax, whole or broken, came to 
light during the digging on the site, but it was probably used by the 
Shinnecock, unless they differed from most Long Island tribes in this 
respect, while resembling them in many others. Stone axes of either 
type were useful in breaking firewood at home and the celt type especially 
for splitting the skulls of enemies while on the warpath, but were not 
capable of chopping, as we know the term. For felling trees and cutting 
them into lengths, it was necessary to apply fire, then to use the stone 
ax to cut away the charcoal and batter loose the fibers so that the fire 
might take fresh hold, and repeat the process until the work was done. 
The marks of a stone ax may be seen on the ends of the large bone (Fig. 
5), a relic of a whale cut up by the ancient Shinnecock, mentioned before 
as found in one of the wigwam sites we explored. 

Although we failed to find a good example in our digging, there is no 
doubt that the ancient Shinnecock used the long cylindrical stone pestle, 
for a number were found still in use among their mixed-blood descendants 
who all agreed that the implement formed part of their ancient equip- 
ment. Such pestles were undoubtedly made by the same battering and 
pecking process used in the manufacture of stone axes. The long pestles, 
as before noted, served to grind corn in deep mortars of pepperidge wood; 
but that these were not the only pattern used is shown by several shallow 
mortars of stone found in our excavations. Fig. 26 is a good example, 
consisting of a stone slab with a cup-shaped hollow on one or both sides. 
Still another type was a flat slab showing traces of rubbing. Instead of a 
pestle a water-worn beach pebble was used as a muller with the shallow 
mortars which may have been employed occasionally to grind corn, but 
probably served mainly for grinding tempering materials and clay 


£96 
‘SMV OUOG *(ZZOL ‘FLFL ‘EPL ‘GEGL ‘Z8SL-0Z) 92 FS “SL 


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Fig. 25 (20-7492). Fragment of Steatite Vessel showing Handle. 





Fig. 26 (20-7757). Stone Mortar. 


264 


pase” 


1924.] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 265 


for pottery making, and for crushing dried meat, dried fish, and dried 
berries. 

We have no reason to suppose that the oval steatite vessels provided 
with lugs at the ends, of which we found several fragments (Fig. 25), 
were made by the Shinnecock. These were probably imported ready 
made from what is now Connecticut, the nearest point where aboriginal 
soapstone quarries have been found. 

A few small fragments of steatite pipes were found which, when 
perfect, probably resembled the specimen found nearby by Tooker (Fig. 
27), a form which required a separate wooden stem. We have no direct 
data on how they were made, but the soft stone must have been easily 
cut and drilled with the usual flint knives and perforators. 

The circular pendants made from claystone concretions (Fig. 22¢, 
Fig. 8), one perforated near the edge, the other in the center, could be 
easily reproduced with similar implements, and the crude design 
seratched in with a flint point. The scratchings on the specimen shown 
in Fig. 28 must have been similarly made; it seems to.be a fragment of a 
similar pendant, but of elongated form. 

Bone and Antler. Implements made of bone and deer antler were 
quite numerous, especially the awls, of which we found several types. 
The best were made from strips cut from the metapodial bone of the 
deer, carefully rounded and polished (Fig. 24be). Others were made 
from the ulna or other large bones of the deer, with the joint left to serve 
as a handle (Fig. 24ae), but the majority were merely sharpened splinters 
of bones that had been split open for the marrow (Fig. 24d). The bones of 
birds or small mammals were more rarely employed in making awls, being 
too fragile to stand hard service. Most awls were probably used in 
sewing to make the holes in the skin or other material through which the 
stiff sinew or fiber thread was thrust. Some were doubtless used in 
basket making, for sewing sheets of bark together to make trays and 
buckets, and some perhaps as forks for lifting hot meat from the pot. 

Next to the bone awls in point of number were the conical arrow 
points made from the tips of deer antlers cut off, sharpened, and drilled 
at the base for the reception of the shaft (Fig. 23a). Sometimes a little 
projection was left at one side of the hole to serve as abarb (Fig. 23b). 
That arrow points were also occasionally made of bone is shown by the 
finding of various fragments, one of which, with a restoration based on 
the style used by neighboring tribes, may be seen in Fig. 29. 

A number of fragmentary bone needles also appeared here (Fig. 
23e), made, asin the example illustrated, of bird bone; or more often of a 


266 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 


slightly curved strip from a deer’s rib; thin and flat, with the eye near 
the middle, and entirely too broad to use in ordinary sewing. Almost 
identical needles are still employed among the Central Algonkin tribes, 
however, for stringing rushes together to make the large mats with which 
they cover their dome-shaped winter wigwams, so it seems probable that 
our Shinnecock needles found some similar use. We have historical 
evidence, to be recounted later, that they used rush mats. 

Among the rarer objects were cylinders of antler (Fig. 23c) whose 
battered ends suggest their use as flint-flaking implements in the manner 
previously described, a broken harpoon point of deer antler with a perfora- - 
tion and one lateral barb, and a slender barb of bone (Fig. 18¢c) which may 
have formed part of a fish spear or may perhaps have been lashed to a 
wooden shank to form a primitive fishhook, such as is still used among 
the Montagnais and other tribes. The harpoon cannot be illustrated 
here, because an important part of it has been lost since finding, but we 
can state that it had one large lateral barb and was perforated. The use 
of bowls made of the carapace of the land tortoise, of which numerous 
fragments (Fig. 10) were found, has been mentioned. That beaver teeth 
were used for some purpose is assumed from the finding of worked frag- 
ments (Fig. 29a). It is known that some tribes had wood-carving tools 
made of beaver teeth, so perhaps the Shinnecock used them in this way. 

The bone implements, complete, broken, and unfinished were 
studied with some care, and after several attempts had been made to 
reproduce them in fresh bone with primitive tools, we finally succeeded, 
and were able to analyze the processes employed. These were sawing, 
grooving, scraping, grinding, drilling, and polishing. Sawing was accom- 
plished with the edge of a flint knife, a large arrow point, or even with the 
edge of a large flint flake and was used when it became necessary to cut a 
piece of bone or antler in two transversely. The edge of the implement 
was worked to and fro with a saw-like motion against the material until 
a deep groove was formed. This was continued until it encircled the 
bone or antler (Fig. 23d) which could then be easily broken in two. 
Grooving, for the purpose of cutting bone lengthwise, was accomplished 
with the point of any flint implement or flake. If a strip of bone were 
needed for the manufacture of an awl, the first step was carefully to mark 
two parallel longitudinal lines on the surface of the bone selected. These 
were scratched deeper and deeper with the point of the implement until 
they became grooves, and finally, until the grooves broke through into 
the marrow cavity. These slits were connected by a transverse sawing 
at the ends, whereupon a strip of bone fell out ready for further elabora- 














Fig. 29 Fig. 30 


Fig. 27. Steatite Pipe. Tooker Collection. 

Fig. 28 (20-7589). Part of Engraved Stone Pendant. 

Fig. 29 ab (20-7530, 7553). Worked Beaver Tooth and Restoration of 
Bone Arrow Point. 

Fig. 30 Potsherd, Lenapé Type. 


267 


268 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 


tion. The next step was to scrape off the sharp edges and work out a. 
rough point with a bevelled edge scraper, or even a flint chip, used much 
as a modern carpenter scrapes wood with a piece of glass; then a gritty 
stone was employed to grind it into final shape. The marks of this grind- 
ing may be seen on the awl (Fig. 24b). The final polish was then put on 
by rubbing with the smooth surface of a beach pebble. The eyes of the 
broad bone needles can easily be reproduced with the point of an arrow- 
head rotated after the manner of a drill, first on one side of the needle 
until partly bored through, then on the other. Since the cavities in the 
bases of antler arrow points for the reception of the shaft were deeper 
they had to be bored with a narrow flint drill which worked best, as 
experiment shows, attached to a short wooden handle. 


Pottery. One nearly complete pottery vessel was secured (Fig. 12) 
and enough parts of another to restore its form, together with many frag- 
ments, all of which served to show that the typical ancient Shinnecock 
pot was somewhat egg-shaped, with pointed base and slightly expanded 
mouth, of the archaic Algonkin type found all along the Atlantic Coast 
from Virginia to Maine.! This type was, however, modified about the 
mouth of the Hudson and in New England by Iroquian influence which 
seems to have first made itself felt shortly before the coming of the whites. 
In capacity, these vessels seem to have varied from about six quarts to 
perhaps four or five gallons. That they were used directly on the fire 
may be seen by the smoked and blackened condition of some of the bot- 
toms. Sometimes, when cracked, they were repaired by boring a series 
of holes in pairs on opposite sides of the split and then lacing it together, 
probably with thongs. Such repaired vessels could not very well have 
been used in cooking, but they must have made good water jars when 
properly pitched to prevent leakage. 

In one pit, we were lucky enough to find the greater part of a potter’s 
outfit, which shed considerable light on the Shinnecock method of making 
earthenware. The first stage was illustrated by a lump of raw clay and 
some clay thoroughly mixed with the crushed shells here often used as 
tempering material; the second, by pieces of clay coils and part of a 
small unfinished vessel (Fig. 6), all preserved by accidental burning, 
which showed that the clay had been worked out into long rolls with 
which the vessel was then built up, coil on coil, the coils being smoothed 
and blended as the work proceeded. The pit even yielded some tools 
with which the blending was done, in the shape of two beach pebbles 








1Holmes, op. cit., 150-158, 175-179. 





Fig. 31 a-h (20-7985, 7935, 7810, 7985, 7598, 7985, 7967, 7847). Potsherds 
showing Decoration. 


269 @. 





016 


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"(6282 ‘TShL ‘G6ZL ‘SSFL ‘0Z6L-0Z) 9-P TE “SI 





—— 





1924.] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 271 


showing wear and still daubed with clay (Fig. 4a). In other parts of the 
site were found clay-covered shells of the ‘‘hen clam,” the worn edges of 
which showed long use for such purposes (Fig. 4b). 

Some years after these excavations were made, the author had occa- 
sion to visit the Indians of South Carolina, where the making of pottery 
by aboriginal methods was found to be a still living industry. I was 
interested then to observe that the Catawba used the coil method, 
blending the coils with smooth pebbles kept constantly wet, and with 
fresh-water clam shells which showed wear in exactly the same place as 
the ‘‘hen-clam” pottery scrapers we had found on Shinnecock Hills. 
After completing the vessels the Catawba dried them a few days in the 
shade and then arranged them around a brisk fire, mouth to the blaze. 
After a while, they assumed a darker color, and when this had become 
uniform, a sign the vessels were hot enough, the blazing brands were 
raked out of the fire, the vessels inverted over the coals and hot ashes 
which were pushed up around them, and the whole covered thickly with 
pieces of dry bark pulled from old pine stumps. When the bark had 
burned away the red-hot vessels were pulled out and allowed to cool 
around the smouldering embers.!_ Probably the ancient Shinnecock dried 
and fired their pottery in a somewhat similar manner. 

The decoration of Shinnecock ware was effected while the clay was 
still fairly soft. The crude patterns were produced by several methods, 
one of them the ordinary one of incising with a sharp point, possibly 
that of a bone awl (Fig. 31f, Fig. 30). Another method was to wrap a 
twig in fiber twine and impress this upon the plastic clay (Fig. 31a, d, h), 
while a third, which seems characteristic of the eastern end of Long 
Island, was to drag a section of the edge of a scallop shell along in such a 
manner as to produce from two to six parallel grooves, and sometimes, 
instead of dragging it, to make successive imprints of the edge of the shell. 
This method may be seen on the complete vessel (Fig. 12) and on several 
of the fragments (Fig. 31b, c, e). A punctate form of decoration was also 
produced by imprinting the round end of a stick (Fig. 3la, g, h). A 
finish for the body of the vessel was often applied with a paddle wrapped 
in fiber cord, while the inner surface was sometimes marked by scraping 
with the edge of a stone serrated by chipping, as was one side of the 
smoothing stone shown in Fig. 4a. 

Quite a number of fragmentary pottery pipes were found, some of 
them nicely decorated, as may be seen in Fig. 32. These differed from 


1Harrington, M. R., “Catawba Potters and their Work’”’ (American Anthropologist, N.S., vol. 10, 
pp. 399-418, 1908). 


272 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 


the stone pipes found in this region by Tooker (Fig. 27) and others in 
that they were provided with a short stem, sometimes round, sometimes 
flat in section, made in one piece with the bowl, and did not require a 
separate wooden stem. How they must have appeared when complete is 
shown by the perfect specimen (Fig. 34) found at Canoe Place, and now 
in the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, as the gift of 
the Long Island Historical Society. 

Weaving. That the Shinnecock, in common with most of the East- 
ern Algonkian tribes made numerous rush mats and wove a variety of 
sacks and bags, burden straps, and perhaps even garters, belts, and gar- 
ments out of fiber cannot be doubted; but the only specimens we found 
to prove it were a few fragments of native cloth preserved by charring 
(Fig. 3). Noticeable features were the coarseness of the fiber composing 
the cord of which the fabric was woven, and the fact that the weft 
threads were run in pairs with a twist together between every strand of 
the warp, a simple form of the twined weave so characteristic of aborig- 
inal textiles in most parts of North America where any weaving was 
done at all. 

We can prove, as before stated, the use of mats among the Shinne- 
cock and neighboring Indians by several historical references; for instance, 
in the agreement between Lion Gardiner and the Indians! in which he 
grants them “‘liberty to cut in the summer time flags, bull-rushes and” 
such things as they make their mats of” on a certain tract ‘‘ provided 
they do no hurt to the horses” pastured there. 

Art and Ornament. The decorative art of the Shinneasais as shown 
in wood carving, in the painting of designs on various objects, and in 
whatever form of embroidery they may have used (probably with dyed 
deer hair) has been lost beyond recovery. All that remains for us to 
study are their pottery decorations on vessels and pipes, and a few mark- 
ings on stone and wood. The story is soon told, for the former are of the 
simplest. Most abundant are combinations of straight lines forming 
bands parallel to the rim of the vessel, combined with angles or chevions 
which may point horizontally (Fig. 3la, d), or vertically (Fig. 31c). 
Sometimes lines singly or in parallel groups may run vertically, instead of 
horizontally, or may be placed diagonally, as may be seen in the whole 
vessel (Fig. 12), and in the potsherd (Fig. 3le), and cross-hatch patterns 
sometimes appear (Fig. 31f). 

These designs, as before noted, were usually produced by the 
imprints of cord-wrapped twigs (Fig. 3la, d, h); by groups of parallel 


1Southampton Records, op. cit., 170. 


ea ee a ee ee | aa ee ee ee ae er 


———--—-  . 


1924.] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 213 


lines drawn with pieces of the edges of scallop or mussel shells (Fig. 31c, e, 
Fig. 12); by imprints of the edges of such shells (Fig. 33b, Fig. 12); and 
by marks and notches made with the point of a sharp instrument such 
as a bone awl (Fig. 31f). The lines and angles are often interspersed 
with circular imprints of the end of some blunt cylindrical instrument 
(Fig. 31 a, g, h). 

The decoration of most of the pottery was exceedingly crude, with 
no attempt at color work, no curved lines, and with a very few exceptions, 
no attempt was made at elaborate patterns even in straight lines and 
angles. There was one exceptional sherd, however, that showed a taste- 
ful, well-executed, and fairly complex pattern (Fig. 30), consisting of a 
band of closely set chevrons forming a herring-bone design surmounting a 
band of large triangles filled with parallel horizontal lines and pointing 





Fig. 33 ab (20-8036, 7779). Black and Red Paint Stones, Graphite and 
Limonite, respectively. 


upward, the spaces between them being left plain. This, however, is so 
divergent from Long Island pottery in general, and resembles so closely 
the Lenapé ware found near Trenton, New Jersey,' that the chances are 
that it was obtained in trade from that region and was not of Shinnecock 
manufacture at all. The sherd shown in Fig. 31f may also belong in the 
same category. 

The designs just described are all of a purely geometric character; 
we did find, however, a few attempts at realistic ornament. One of these 
is the crude drawing of a bird scratched on a stray potsherd (Fig. 32e), 
an hourglass-shaped figure whose head is represented by a slight projec- 
tion and the wings by drooping lines. It is particularly interesting on 
account of its practical identity with drawings still made by the Central 
Algonkin tribes and their neighbors to represent a Thunderbird, a race of 





1Volk, Ernest, ‘‘The Archeology of the Delaware Valley”’ ave ® Peabody Museum of American 
Archzology and Ethnology, vol. 5, 1911), pls. CXII, CXIII, CXIV 


274 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 


mythic beings who were thought to be the patrons of warriors, the bring- 
ers of rain for the crops, and the guardians of mankind against water 
monsters. 

Perhaps also connected with tribal tradition are the rough sketch of 
the head of some animal, possibly a lynx, engraved on one side of a 
pebble (Fig. 7); while a slight stretch of the imagination might interpret 
the markings on one side of the circular gorget seen in Fig. 8a as the 
profile of a turkey, while those on the reverse side may represent a human 
eye (Fig. 8b). 

We found little to indicate personal decoration, except the circular 
gorgets or pendants (Fig. 22¢, Fig. 8), a coarse shell bead, since lost, and 
the copper bead (Fig. 11) which may be made of native metal. The 





Fig. 34. Earthen Pipe, Canoe Place. Courtesy of the Museum of the American 
Indian, Heye Foundation. 


paint, red and black, ground from deeply scored bits of limonite (Fig. 
33b) and graphite (Fig. 33a) was probably, for the most part, applied to 
the faces of the Shinnecock. 

- Trade. As previously noted, the presence of implements made of 
purple argillite in the refuse deposits indicates trade with the tribes of 
New Jersey, as does the appearance of a few sherds of typical Trenton 
Lenapé pottery; fragments of steatite cooking vessels and pipes show 
commerce with Connecticut tribes (the nearest quarries were there), 
while a number of objects, all found in the upper layers of the deposits, 
bear witness to the latter day trade with the whites. Examples ofthese . 
are shown in Fig. 15 and consist of a gun flint (a), the handle of a brass 
kettle (6), and part of a trade pipe of clay (c). 

If the copper bead, which, as may be seen from the drawing (Fig. 
11) has been made by rolling a flat bit of the metal into cylindrical form, 
should prove on analysis to have been made from a native nugget, inter- 
tribal trade from so distant a region as Lake Superior would be estab- 





: Fig. 35. Portrait of Wickam Cuffee. 


916 
SIO} M “A “V “SIJL JO WeIWOY “LE “BLT ‘uUNg “§ SepTeYD JO yer}IOg “gg “BLY 








1924.] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 207 


lished. If not, we have merely another specimen showing trade with 
Europeans. 

Fate of the Shinnecock. The Shinnecock truly sold ‘their birthright 
for a mess of pottage’’ in 1640 when they placed their marks as signatures 
on the first deed to the English settlers. From that time onward, the 
town records of Southampton! are our best source for learning what befell 
them. We find many early town ordinances that must have proved 
irritating in the extreme, for example, the one before quoted, forbid- 
ding the Indians to dig for ground nuts. We observe also that they were 
at first not permitted in the town at all, that no one was allowed to sell 
them food; and perhaps most onerous of all, that they were ordered to 
kill their dogs. No wonder they were sometimes rebellious, and once 
attacked Southampton and burned several houses, for which damage they 
were later compelled to pay. 

On the other hand, we find that it was lawful to sell food to the 
sachem for his own use, but to no one else, and in another place it was 
made lawful to sell an Indian flour, provided it was of the coarsest quality. 
In 1649 it was permitted to the Indian women to come to town on shop- 
ping tours, and then the same privilege was extended to the “ancient 
men” to do the same, but these must first obtain ‘‘tickets.’”’ Still more 
considerate was an ordinance forbidding the whites to turn out their 
_ “Hoggs or piggs” on the Indians’ land, that their corn be not damaged, 
and another in 1653 providing that “‘if the Indians will suitably fence one 
half between them and us that then ye towne will fence the other half.’ 
By 1675 the relations of the two races had so improved that many Indians 
were employed by the whites to go to sea for them in pursuit of whales. 

Of the Shinnecock’s relations with other Indians we learn of their 
distress on account of a threatened attack by ‘‘Naragansets” in 1653, 
and of their submission to Wyandance of Montauk, whom they acknowl- 
edged as ‘‘Sachem of Pawmanack or Long Island.’’ He however was 
_ brother of their own chief, Nowedonah. 

Little record was made of the Shinnecock after they ceased to be, 
from the settler’s point of view, a menace to the colony, and took their 
_ place in its whaling and other industries. We learn from other sources? 
that many of them went to Brotherton, in Oneida County, New York, 
~ about 1789, where they joined the remnants of various New England 
tribes, and in 1833 moved with them to Wisconsin, where their mixed 
descendants may still be found. 

1Southampton Records, op. 


2** Handbook of American odigns” (Bulletin 30, Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, 1907, 
1910), part 1, 166; part 2, 550. 





Fig. 38. 





Fig. 38. Portrait of John H. Thompson. 
Portrait of Mary Ann Cuffee. 


Fig. 39. 


278 





1924.] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 279 


Some of those left behind intermarried with negroes, a phenomenon 
seen among several remnants of Atlantic Coast tribes and among some 
Muskhogean peoples, but exceedingly rare elsewhere, fortunately for the 
future of the Indian race. Certain it is that the African mixture has lost, 
for the Long Island survivors the respect and support of the Iroquois 
tribes who now will not recognize them in any way, and will not even 
admit that there is any Indian blood left on Long Island. 

There has been a heavy infusion of white blood too, but affairs had 
progressed so far that when I paid my first visit to the Shinnecock “ Res- 
ervation,” in 1902, the place appeared to be a negro, or rather, mulatto 
settlement, pure and simple. But more careful search revealed a number 
of individuals showing Indian characteristics. To quote my notes, 
written at the time :— 

Some are black and woolly headed, having at the same time facial 
characteristics distinctly Indian. Others have the straight hair and light 
color of the Indian, but the flat nose, large dull eyes, and thick lips of the 
negro. A few of the men are typically Indian. Of these, Wickam Cuffee 
(Fig. 35) is the best example. He is Indian in color and feature, and 
claims to be full blooded, but the slight curl in his hair seems to point to 
some admixture. He speaks with a Yankee accent, and gladly tells all he 
knows of the old times. Andrew Cuffee, the blind ex-whaler, also pre- 
sents many Indian characteristics, while Charles Bunn, Fig. 36, (with a 
slight tinge of negro) and John Thompson (Fig. 38) (part white) are good 
types. Very few of the young men on the reserve show Indian character- 
istics. A number of the women are pure or nearly pure-blooded 
Indian Among them are Mary Brewer, Mary Ann Cuffee (Fig. 39) and 
Mrs. Waters (Fig. 37). The preponderance of women over men is 
accounted for by the drowning of most of the Indian men when the ship 
Circassian, stranded off Easthampton, was destroyed, on December 31, 
1876, by asudden storm. Then it was that the corpses of the Shinnecock 
salvers, each incased in a mass of frozen sand, were found scattered along 
the bleak ocean beach from Amagansett to Montauk. Thus perished the 
flower of the tribe—the expert whalers who had sailed on many successful 
voyages out of Sag Harbor or New Bedford— the men whom their white 
neighbors still speak of as being ‘‘noble-looking, strong, and tall.” 

Many of the survivors, especially the younger ones, have left the 
reservation, and are now scattered abroad. The only Indian children 
seen during my entire stay were visitors from Shinnecock families settled 
elsewhere.! 








1Harrington, M. R., ‘‘Shinnecock Notes” (Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 16, 1903), 37-39. 


280 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. (Vol. XXII, 


That such survivors still exist and still show strong Indian character- 
istics without visible African admixture is proved by a photograph re- 
cently taken at Easthampton which was published in the New York 
Evening Post, March 18, 1922. Very likely the destruction of the ‘‘ flower 
of the tribe” in 1876 left the negroid mixed-bloods in the majority in the 
settlement, which was so distasteful to the remaining Indian families that 
all who were financially able moved away. 


alll Deh aes 


Ss 


CULTURAL AND LinGuistic Position 


Our investigations, so far as they went, show that the Shinnecock 
were, in a general way, similar in material culture to the other tribes of 
Long Island and the coast of the adjoining mainland. However, they 
differed in some particulars from the tribes at the western tip of Long 
Island and elsewhere in the immediate vicinity of New York City, for 
which region we possess considerable data. 

For instance, the Shinnecock seem to have used the dome-shaped, 
thatched wigwam in preference to all other types, a variety not men- 
tioned by early travelers about New Amsterdam; also, their pottery, 
although similar in form to the archaic ware of western Long Island, 
differs from it in the more abundant use of pounded shells for tempering 
the clay, and in certain decorations. Moreover, the Shinnecock made 
little use of the grooved ax, so popular among the Rockaway and 
Canarsie, and used many more crude, broad, triangular, stemless, white 
quartz arrow points than points of other shapes and materials; while in 
western Long Island the triangular form is in the minority. A similar 
state of affairs, exists in the shell-heaps of eastern Connecticut! the 
significance of which will be seen later. Another feature in which the 
Shinnecock differed from the tribes about New York City was in the 
use of the circular stone pendant, seldom seen in the latter district. 

When the writer visited Shinnecock in 1902 he found the language 
dead, and was able to collect only the few words given below, although 
it was afterward learned that there were persons, living away from the 
settlement, who might have furnished at least a much larger vocabulary. 
The list is given for what it is worth, with a few suggestive comparisons, 
merely with the comment that the first two words were found also among 
the Poosepatuck mixed-bloods on Long Island.? 

It will be noticed that there are many more correspondences between 
Shinnecock and Natick and Narragansett than between Shinnecock and 
Delaware, Abnaki or Sauk, and that Narragansett seems nearest of all 
on account of the remarkably close resemblance of some of the rarer 
words. It is also interesting to note that good cognates in Algonkian 


1JIn the collection of Mr. Norris L. Bull of Hartford, Connecticut, may be seen rude triangular 
quartz arrow points, antler fish hooks, forms and decorations of pottery, and decorations on earthern 
pipes, practically identical in detail with those found at Shinnecock Hills. These were discovered 
in a shell-heap near the mouth of the Niantic River. Specimens from shell-heaps further west, near 
Milford, for example, do not show this close resemblance. : 

2The Natick and Narragansett words are from Trumbull, James Hammond, “ Natick Dictionary’’ 
(Bulletin 25, Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, 1903); the Delaware from Brinton, Daniel G. 
and Anthony, Albert §., ‘‘A LenApé-English Dictionary”’ (Pennsylvania Students Series, vol. 1, Historical 
Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1888), plus one word, sipan, collected by myself; the Abnaki is 
from Elijah Tahomont, an Abnaki of St. Francis, Quebec; the Malecite is from Dr. Frank G. Speck; 
while the Sauk is from the late Dr. William Jones. 


281 


686 


“UTeTOVS Yoooouulyyg B Jo ourvu vy} Sv Sp100e1 uojydureyynog oy} ut srvodde ,,a0149,, 
“BOL ‘(BOGL ‘E ‘JOA ‘SetIOS STL.) ,, SUBIPUT OTJUBINY pus URZOqOT 24} UO 
soj0N,, “ YuRrg ‘yoodg !ynoyoouuoy ut AT}Ue0eI [YUN Ueyods yoo[eIp uvdeyoOJ 9Y} UI M090 ‘uBUIOM PTO ‘oFTM ‘s,1BUIM pue :uBUT pfo ‘pusqsny ‘SIB0}] SPIOM 9Y.L7 








jney 


ydv AT IM 
[MBATUIQY 


CMM, T 


ey ey, oul 


RBS 


ysnur= ued,es) 
dnos } 
= uvdesyoes | 


v4hee 
= YBMoMeyos 
nonbyso 


yoosyoe 


oTVMBlOC, 


Leo Cos pain 
UBM ,TULS3] 
418s 
= UBMIS 
BM¥S 
synys 
OS104.10} 
= yIopyrur 
(sTouvIy “49) 
9O}O9]B IAT nyeuqy 


{JIMS SI OY 
—nyenbyonut 


nos yuey} T 

= uvoABMVUBEU JNQNe} 
(gonbeg) sure[a 

= snemesyons 


sooded 
smenbs 
yshuom 
UvUL PO 
= ostyo 
See 


4{OSUBSBIIG NS 


npUVY} st oy 
—ureyueyyngey 


pouezjos 
= unvdnes 

asnoy sty 
= yoo 


InOos = 098 
auo 2]} 41] 

= nsosstoded 

svenbs 


uBul plo 


cP a hol 
yooyse 


3PVBN 


AMAyQuI —jyornb 
aulo0d 
Trea ,Yey  jSurjoo1s 
Fes A [e3[Seqy 
BMBOT,QS Ysyypeus 
u,eddns ysnut u100 
urIex, IM esnoy 
OJUL,QY ured 
SEMIS  YoREd-Bes 
snded pro 
BMYS uvUIOM 
{U@U, TM uvulomM 
{STB} ueul 
ynys ayeus 
yloyeur eqjany 


yoooouurys §=—YSsIsuGy 


Sa ee eee ee ee ee 


—_— 


ee Le es ee ee ee ee 


1924.] Harrington, An Ancient Village Site of the Shinnecock Indians. 283 


dialects were easily found for all the Shinnecock words collected except the 
greeting “‘hah’cami.”’ 

The writer makes no claim to a knowledge of Algonkian languages 
and has probably overlooked important evidence, but it seems safe to 
state, on the basis of this brief vocabulary alone, that the Shinnecock 
language was more nearly related to the Southern New England group 
of Algonkian dialects than it was to the Lenapé (Delaware) group or to 
the Abnaki group, and this same conclusion has been reached independ- 
ently by Speck! and by Tooker.’ 

Archeologically, we have the evidence of the wide triangular white 
quartz arrow points, before mentioned, as a favorite form, the pottery, 
the decoration on the earthern pipes, and the antler fish hooks, con- 
necting the Shinnecock material* culture with that of southern New 
England, particularily eastern Connecticut, but further investigation is 
needed in both regions before we can make full comparisons and be 
certain of Shinnecock relationship in this respect. Such comparisons 
would be particularly interesting in view of the fact that the Shinne- 
cock kept their ancient culture, if not their blood, pure to the last, 
unmodified by the Iroquois influence that had made itself so strongly 
felt about the mouth of the Hudson and even in many parts of New 
England shortly before the arrival of the whites. 

Judging from the conditions noted at Sebonac, we might conclude 
that wherever the Shinnecock came from, they had not been located in 
eastern Long Island more than a few hundred years before the coming of 
the whites; but we cannot state this as a fact, for other sites may be 
found showing longer occupation. This is another question to be settled 
by further explorations, which might also reveal the identity of their 
predecessors, whose existence was suggested by the finding of a few 
archaic, apparently non-Shinnecock specimens below our village layer. 


1Dr. Frank G. Speck wrote me in a personal letter that he believes that the Shinnecock belong 
linguistically to the Southern New England group, and expresses the same idea in a manuscript, Native 
Tribes and Dialects of Connecticut to be published by the Bureau of American Ethnology. 
he similarity of the eastern Long Island and southern New England dialects is brought out in 
Tooker, William Wallace, John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter, Cockenoe-de-Long Island, 
New York, 1896). 





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ee 2 ole XXII, ae ; 

Contributions to he Archaeology of Mammoth Caveaad Vicinity, Kentucky. cs 

N.C. Nelson: Pp. 1-73, and 18 text figures. 1917, Price, $.75.. ~~ Fa Et ERS 
: onology in Florida. ay N. C. Nelson. Pp. 75-103, and f text figures, Ste eal eae 





of ‘the Polar Richio “By. Clark Wissler. ‘Pp. 105-166, 33 eee 
~ 1918. Brice $$ SOF. 8 4 
Argillite. Culture. BY. Peslie Spier. Pp. 167-226; and” ret : att 
‘Price, $.50. aes 2 
Site of the Siiuecone Indians. By: M. R, Husrington See Ae. 
1924, ee $50. ee IN INOS eS ORS 2 Oa 





Paiiene XXIIL 3 Oo anne oa ae 
racial. Types in th Philippine Islands. ~ ‘By Louis R. Sullivan. P 1 61, be noe 
1 oo ps. (1918, Price, $.75,~ ie a 





Tribes By Louis R. ‘Sullivan, “Po ae 
Prie S125. kapha 


‘and "Dion of ‘Sone: Aosta ree Fat Bees ‘ Od 
Pp. -203- 258, and. 1 text Hr gure. 1922, a ee es 


ae and ‘Greiislion * nanos Native. “ha ete cee 
d ce Gar Wissler. Pp 259-307, and 5 ae Pea 














the Crow) Indians. ‘By Robert a. Lovie. ae > 





ndians.. : By Robert HL Lowie,. Poa S044 





